


History: a concise account by Nile Freeman, PhD

by Hoeratius



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, Nile's entire degree is based around what makes for the funniest exchanges, That is the only coherency in her tertiary education
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hoeratius/pseuds/Hoeratius
Summary: ‘I just wondered if you had any suggestions for my essay,’ Nile said.‘Oh, I can think of a couple of topics. How about…’ Joe exchanged a glance with Andromache, and folded his hands behind his head lazily. ‘How about hygiene standards amongst the Crusaders?’Nicky’s chopsticks landed in his noodles with an almost aggressive tap. ‘Really? Nine hundred years later –’‘Eight hundred,’ Joe corrected. ‘It took me decades to get you clean.’***A series of oneshots where Nile gets a history degree and learns about Crusader hygiene and other regrettable facts.
Comments: 44
Kudos: 204





	1. The use of hygiene as an expression of islamic cultural identity at the time of the Crusades

Nile barely felt her fingers as she turned the doorknob. December had come with a vengeance, and even the thirty-minute walk from campus to the Guard’s new home had frozen her toes until they, thankfully, went numb.

The moment she opened the door, warmth, light, and the spices of Chinese noodles greeted her. She unwound her scarf, her gloves, her coat, and finally the wool hat Nicky had knitted her two weeks ago, as slowly her body acclimatised to home.

Joe poked his head out from the living room. ‘Dinner’s in ten. Good day at school?’

‘I’ll tell you about it at dinner,’ she said, with a smile to let him know it was nothing serious. She dashed up the stairs, where she had a small room to herself, and switched into a pair of socks that wasn’t damp with snowy cold. Seated on the edge of her bed, flexing her hands until the circulation had returned properly, she cast her eye across the shelf over her desk. Next to a printed picture of her family back when her father was still alive, the key texts for her new degree gleamed proudly. _The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land. Crusaders. Crusades: An Islamic Perspective._

Who’d have thought she’d become a historian one day? But after the twentieth joke about the Roman standards captured in battle, or the awful wigs of pre-revolutionary France, she realised she wanted to know where her new family came from. Since Booker was across the ocean and Andy probably counted as Advanced History, Nile had decided to start with the other two.

She tapped her nails on her jeans. Their early history did not paint Nicky in a particularly good light, to say the least, and she was beginning to imagine the horrors Joe must have witnessed. However she phrased the conversation at dinner, she wanted to be careful not to open any old wounds…

‘Nile?’ Joe called from downstairs. ‘Dinner!’

‘Coming!’

She decided not to take her notebook. This was just early idea gathering. Still, as she took her seat at the table, she felt sure her nerves had to be written all over her face.

‘So, school,’ said Joe, as Nicky placed a steaming wok at their centre and began distributing the food. ‘Did you learn anything interesting?’

‘Today was a briefing session for my coursework,’ said Nile. ‘So they mainly taught us about formatting rules and word count limits and how we weren’t allowed to use Harvard references.’

Andy rolled her eyes. ‘The administrative nonsense education gets up to nowadays.’

‘What was education like when you…’ _were younger_? Nile had no idea how to phrase the end of that question, and Andy laughed.

‘Wise people sang us their knowledge in verse,’ she said. ‘Education was better when everything still fit into song.’

‘They didn’t explicitly rule out rhyme,’ Nile said. ‘Maybe that would get me extra marks.’

Everybody now served, Nicky sat down and picked up his chopsticks. ‘So what is your coursework on?’

‘Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you guys about.’ Nile took a massive bite of noodles to buy herself some extra time. Somehow, the flavour had an Italian slant to it, as if the basil and pecorino refused to abandon Nicky’s cooking implements. ‘So, as you might know, my module is on exchanges between East and West in the Middle Ages.’

‘A classic topic,’ said Joe.

And the whole reason why she’d applied to this university. ‘Exactly. And I was thinking of doing it on the Crusades. I mean, a lot of it is about the Crusades, I’m not just doing it for, I mean…’

Nicky averted his eyes, to Nile’s relief. ‘You don’t need to justify your interest.’

‘I just wondered if you had any suggestions,’ she said, glancing from Nicky to Joe, feeling as if she had to apologise somehow, until Joe’s face broke out in a wide grin and he gave her that little conspiratorial wink of his.

‘I can think of a couple of topics. How about…’ he said, leaning back in his chair. He exchanged a glance with Andromache, and folded his hands behind his head lazily, drawing out his suggestion with a cheeky grin. ‘How about hygiene standards amongst the Christians?’

Nicky’s chopsticks landed in his noodles with an almost aggressive tap. ‘Really? Nine hundred years later –’

‘Eight hundred,’ Joe corrected. ‘It took me decades to get you clean.’

‘Where I was from, that kind of luxurious –’

‘Every time you lifted your arms, the smell from your pits made the grass around you die.’

‘I was in touch with nature!’

‘It’s true,’ Andy whispered to Nile, as Nicky slipped into Italian. ‘I don’t know how poor the situation was when they met, but even when we found Nicky, he… Bathing was not on his list of priorities.’

Nile studied the home-made haircut and comfortable T-shirt of the man in front of her, and recalled the scent of unwashed socks and cheese-like whatever that surrounded some of her fellow students. Somehow, she had no difficulty imagining practical Nicky thinking showers were unnecessary, back in the day. ‘Ew.’

‘You can say that again, Nile,’ said Joe. ‘Did you hear that, Nicky? _Ew_.’

‘You had _poisoned_ the _wells_!’ Nicky threw his hands in the air. ‘I’m sorry if I rather lived than bathed!’

‘It’s not like you changed your habits when… Remember when I first took you to a Hammam? Your skin tone turned out to be two shades lighter underneath the layers of filth. That was in 1180.’

Nile caught Andy’s gaze, and both of them hid their faces in their food to avoid the other two picking up on their grins. In the meantime, Nile did the maths and…

‘I thought you two got together around the 1140s,’ she said.

Joe blinked. ‘Yes?’

‘You slept together forty years before Nicky had a bath?’

Joe opened his mouth as if to respond, but Nicky’s smugness showed without any words. Tapping his chopsticks together, he pointed them at Nile to emphasise her brilliance, and took a large bite of food.

‘He’d just been de-flea’d,’ said Joe. ‘And we’d gone for a swim in the sea. He wasn’t _clean_ clean, but…’

‘I was perfectly acceptable.’

‘Hardly.’

‘You weren’t complaining at the time.’

‘I was distracted. No, no, you don’t get to turn this on me.’ Joe looked from Nicky to Andromache and Nile in turn, and was met with nothing but amusement. ‘Listen, sometimes, love means you look beyond the physical.’

‘Love, yes,’ said Nile. ‘Sex?’

‘You’re young,’ said Andy. ‘You’ll learn. If you spend enough time in deserts, or swamps, or the mountains with someone else, eventually the need to stay warm… Joe is right in that regard.’

‘But to get back to where this all started…’ Joe cleared his throat, avoiding Nicky’s smug grin. ‘The Crusaders did not wash. Possibly ever. Keep in mind Nicky arrived by boat and had just spent weeks at sea as well. He was disgusting.’

Nile twisted her mouth. She could really do without all the emphasis on what must have been the world’s worst BO. ‘And you think that would make a good topic for my essay?’

‘It will help you understand Nicky a lot better,’ said Joe. ‘And me. Notice how I always smell delicious. Have done for almost a millennium. I am a _delight_.’

‘I have been clean since the twelfth century,’ said Nicky, to the raised eyebrows of both Joe and Andy.

Joe leaned towards Nile and, in a faux-whisper everyone else could hear, told her: ‘He never became quite so vile as he was outside Jerusalem. But between the travel, the siege -’

‘- the poisoned wells,’ Nicky added, which Joe conceded with a nod.

‘ - and Christians seeming to think personal hygiene was devilishly sinful, the Crusading army could basically be smelt before you saw or heard them.’

‘Ew,’ Nile said again.

Nicky lowered his head and sighed deeply in defeat.

 _Ew_ was the right word. Now she just had to find the correct scholarly term.


	2. Reflections on Harley MS 3565 ff12r-17v: Vita Sancti Nicolai Genuensis

Nile’s mechanical pencil sat poised over her notebook, but her hand had gone slack ten minutes ago. The impossibly high ceiling, decorated with gorgeous animals and geometric patterns, held more interest than the monotone of her lecturer. She wondered what was for dinner that night. Maybe they could get pizza. Maybe Nicky could _make_ pizza. Nicky’s protestations that proper pizza came from Naples and that he, a mere Genovan, could never hope to replicate their flavours, least of all with these inferior ingredients, had never stopped Nile from thinking his _capricciosa_ was the best she’d ever tasted. And really, the distance between Naples and Genoa wasn’t -

‘… Nicolò di Genova, who, interestingly, was adored more in Campania and Calabria than in his native city…’

She shot upright, wondering if she’d heard it correctly. A glance at her neighbour’s handout told her they’d arrived at page three, and she scanned the passages until the words confirmed what her ears had already picked up:

_Harley MS 3565, ff 12r-17v: Vita Sancti Nicolai Genuensis._

Didn’t have to mean anything. Nicolò, or Nicola, Nicolas, Nicholaus, whatever weird spelling those Italians had at the time, was a common enough name. Still, she listened to the lecturer with a fresh interest.

‘… miraculous healing of a local woman,’ he said. ‘And, as is illustrated on folio 16v in the top right corner, reproduced at the end of your handout, he also brought back to life a pilgrim who had been cruelly attacked on his journey into the city. These two miracles confirmed, he was canonised within three years of his death…’

Nile turned to the final page, where a poor, greyscale copy of of a fourteenth century manuscript showed a little man, his intestines still hanging out from his torn belly, looking up at the sky with opened hands. There, smiling down from a cloud, his head adorned with a thin line that must have shone gold in the original but was a slightly darker grey in Nile’s copy, was Saint Nicolò.

The grainy quality of the photocopy did not hide, however, the distinct, familiar bridge of that nose.

*******

She slammed the door shut and immediately regretted it when Andy jumped into the corridor pointing a gun. Then again, maybe Andy was right to be armed, because Nile was _pissed off_.

‘When were you guys going to tell me Nicky is a saint?’ she demanded, storming into the living room. She pushed her handout under Joe’s nose and folded her arms in front of her chest. ‘An actual _saint_? What’s next, Joe, did you write the hagiography?’

He betrayed himself through awkwardly scratching his beard in silence.

‘Doesn’t meet your usual artistic standards.’ Nile snatched back the paper. ‘Sainthood? Really? Was anyone going to tell me or was I just supposed to find out in a lecture on patron saints myself?’

‘I was purged from the official list in 1969,’ said Nicky. ‘So it doesn’t really matter any more.’

Andy and Joe exchanged an awkward look, until Andy, running a hand through her hair, stepped forward. ‘No, you got put back on.’

‘Wait, what?’

‘You’d been moved to third-rank saint because of a lack of historical evidence,’ she said. ‘But we still had some lying around. We just donated it to, what’s his name…’

‘Harley?’ Nile said, raising her eyebrows.

‘That’s the one! And there we had it, a near-contemporary account.’

Nicky twisted his neck at her, now as incredulous as Nile. ‘You reinstated me without _telling_ me? Without even asking?’

She shrugged. ‘It seemed funny at the time.’

‘ _Ma che cazzo, ragazzi,_ ’ he spluttered, turning his head from Andy to Joe, both of whom had the decency to look at least a tiny bit embarrassed. He took the handout from Nile. After a brief look, it fluttered around as a prop to his Italian emotion, powerless in his eloquent hands. ‘And now I’m part of a university course?’

Nile placed her fingers at her temples. She needed a glass of wine if this was going to continue. ‘No, wait, can we rewind a second. Nicky used to be a saint, wasn’t for a bit, and now he is again?’

‘That sounds about right,’ said Andy. ‘It was a time when they gave out loads of sainthoods. It’s not that big a deal, Nile.’

‘Yes it is!’ both Nile and Nicky said in unison.

‘How did any of this even happen the first time?’ asked Nile.

Nicky folded his arms and rested against the wall, keeping his lips firmly pressed together. Not even his hands spoke, as he raised his eyebrows to Joe and Andy and invited them to explain.

‘So, we were in Naples, back when it was still a nice city, except that night, there was a fire,’ said Joe, scratching his beard again. ‘The whole district worked together to put it out before it reached the church, but we were too late. The flames reached the roof, which consisted of ancient, completely dry timber, and everything was ablaze in moments. Now, Nicky, as a good priest…’

‘Complete idiot, more like it,’ said Andy.

‘A good priest with some of his critical thinking impaired by the drama unfolding in front of our eyes. He, um, ran into the church to save the Host. Seconds later, the roof collapsed.’

This had taken a distinct turn for the awful. Nile looked at Nicky, as if he might still bear the burns from that occasion, but of course he’d healed centuries ago.

‘Don’t die in a fire,’ he said, noticing her curiosity.

‘Noted.’

Joe lowered his hands, for a change as serious as Nicky. ‘So, obviously, when he didn’t come out again, the good people of Naples assumed he had died. They mourned the loss of such a brave man, and that seemed to be that. Nicky and Quýnh left town for a bit, kept a low profile while Andy and I finished up some work there, and, um…’

‘And then a local woman healed miraculously,’ Nile said, remembering the excerpt from the handout.

‘I was an accident,’ said Andy. ‘But people knew I’d got there with Nicky, and before we knew it, he was beatified.’

Nicky shook his head. ‘Which you could have left it at!’

‘What happened next?’

Andy looked at Joe, who was very firmly _not_ looking at his soulmate. ‘Well, Andy and I, we thought it would be funny…’

‘Blasphemous,’ Nicky fumed.

‘And he wasn’t there to stop us, and… Like, we needed only one more miracle. People were on the lookout for it. So we helped it along a bit. It was unpleasant, don’t get me wrong,’ he hurried to add, when Nile’s jaw dropped. ‘Dying for the sake of a prank is commitment, okay? But I made sure to invoke Nicolò of Genova, and look! I recovered from the stabbing!’

Nile recalled the beaming smile in the manuscript’s depiction of Joe. ‘Yes, and you looked delighted by it.’

‘Come on, Nile, you have to admit that’s kind of funny.’ Andy herself couldn’t suppress her grin, even now. ‘Our own Nicky, a saint. We used to go to his shrine once in a while. Even though he died in a fire and no trace was ever found, they somehow managed to obtain his clavicle. It got a little reliquary and everything.’

Nicolò shook his head, muttered Italian curses flying from his lips, mixed with just enough English for Nile to keep track: ‘… should have left me excised… can’t believe you _reinstated_ my position… Paul the Sixth was completely within his rights…’

‘I am sorry, _caro_ ,’ Joe said, taking the handout from Nicky’s hand and casting his eye over his own art. ‘We wouldn’t have done it if it hadn’t been so absolutely hilarious.’

Nile just couldn’t stop staring at Nicky. ‘You’re a saint.’

‘It only counts if you stay dead.’

‘Ah, you don’t know that,’ said Andy, with a little wiggle of her finger. ‘It’s never explicitly stated. I’m glad you reminded us of this – and that they’re teaching it, too!’ She shook her head, more pleased than Nile could ever remember seeing her. ‘Maybe we should go to Naples. Give your shrine a visit. Eat some pizza. What do you say, Nile?’

Nile’s shoulders slumped as she wondered what else they had forgotten to mention to her. At this rate, Andy might have been an Apostle, for all she knew. Perhaps she should give _Acts_ another read, just to be sure…

Until then, she should take things one step at a time. ‘Pizza sounds good.’


	3. In the eye of the beholder: the acceptability of same-sex love between artists and their muses in sixteenth century Andalusia, a case study

‘So, what are the rules for Mary’s visit?’ Nile looked from one Immortal to the next, her hands on her hips like a soccer mom before a game telling them all to play nice but make sure they win.

‘No weapons at the table,’ said Joe.

‘No jokes about existential dread,’ said Andy.

Nile’s gaze rested on Nicky, who hung his head in defeat. ‘No comments about the inferiority of American food. Unless –’

‘There is no unless.’

‘Unless she compliments my skills,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve seen what college students eat, Nile. I want her to know there is another way. Please.’

Before she could argue back, the bell rang. Nile hurried to the corridor, and, as a final warning, reminded them: ‘This is a normal friend. I would like to keep one – one! – normal friend during my degree, all right?’

They all nodded, and Nile ran to get the door. ‘Hey.’

‘Hello.’ Mary, wrapped up in so many layers of scarves that only her eyes and the bridge of her nose were visible, stepped inside. Nile could feel her curiosity as she glanced at the corridor, the stairs, the living room doorway through which Arabic pop music reached their ears.

‘Good trip?’ Nile asked.

‘Freezing, but it’s all right now I’m here. Are your housemates…?’

‘Just in the living room.’

Mary nodded. In a low voice, she asked, ‘So how do you know these people again? Did you just respond to an ad for a housemate, or what?’

‘No, um, we…’ She should have thought about this _before_ inviting Mary over. Now she just had to pray the others listened in and adapted to the lie that slipped over her lips: ‘There was this really big theatre production in my home town. Lots of historical plays. We hit it off really well.’

‘And they moved with you to university?’

Nile nodded ‘Yeah.’

‘That’s nice of them.’

‘They’re super supportive,’ Nile agreed, as Mary hung her coat on the rack. ‘After my parents died, they felt quite protective of me. And they’re all really into history, so it’s nice to be able to ask them questions. They usually know where to look for answers. Come. Nicky’s made lasagne.’

She led Mary to the living room, where Joe and Andy looked perfectly normal. No bullet wounds, no axes, just two adoptive parents beaming with curiosity at the human their child brought home.

Joe rose from his chair, extending his hand. ‘You must be Mary.’

‘Indeed I am,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Joe?’

‘The very one.’

‘Can I get you anything to drink?’ Nile asked, now at least one of them was confirmed as normal and charming. ‘Water, wine, coke…?’

‘Whatever you’re having.’

‘Let’s go for wine,’ said Andy. ‘Hey kid. I’ll get it, you guys take a seat.’

Ever the gentleman, Joe pulled out a chair for Mary and waited until she’d sat down before he pushed it towards the table. As he did so, he asked, ‘Nile said you’re in her Renaissance art class, is that right?’

‘Yes. I focus on quite different things, though. Nile seems enamoured with the paintings, the masters, that kind of thing, but I prefer the study of small manuscripts, sketches, the sociology underlying it all.’

‘Anything in particular you focus on?’ asked Joe.

‘Spanish art. Southern Spain, Andalusia, in particular.’

Joe smiled in remembrance. ‘A beautiful place.’

‘Beautiful art, as well. The mix of Christian, Islamic, and Jewish styles is incredible,’ said Mary. She took a deep breath, and Nile recognised the start of a mini-lecture, but Mary caught herself. ‘Sorry, I get excited quite quickly. I just love it so much.’

‘Don’t apologise!’ said Joe. ‘I love that period in art history, too.’

‘Do you? I didn’t think –’

At that point, both Nicky and Andy returned from the kitchen, Nicky balancing three plates on his hands, Andy another two plus a bottle of red wine under her armpit. Joe rushed to take two of Nicky’s plates, presenting them to Nile and their guest, and Nile felt herself fill with a warm sense of love for her new family.

‘Mary, meet Nicky,’ said Nile. ‘Our resident cook and mom-friend.’

‘It smells incredible,’ Mary said, lifting her fork. ‘Thank you for having me over.’

‘Any excuse to feed more people.’ Nicky smiled and sat down, looking upon his work with pride as Andy poured them each a glass of wine. ‘ _Buon appetito_.’

Mary raised her head to look at him, and froze. A tiny, tiny frown played between her eyebrows as she stared at Nicky in wonder.

‘Mary was just saying how she loved Spanish art,’ said Joe, lifting his glass of sparkling water.

‘You two will get along just fine then,’ said Andy. ‘He never stops talking about it. The chiaroscuro, the emotion, the passion…’

‘Mary?’ Nile asked. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, just…’ Mary blinked and took a bite of her lasagne, as if that might clear her mind. She looked at Nicky again. ‘Have we met? You look _really_ familiar.’

Nicky shook his head slowly. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘But you look… Oh. Oh, never mind, I know what it is.’ She laughed. ‘Sorry, talking about Spanish art reminded me. I’m doing my essay on this particular notebook _slash_ diary, and it features some drawings, and you look _exactly_ like that person. Like, I spent most of this afternoon looking at his face, and… Let me show you.’

She got up from the table to search around in her bag, not aware of the three wide-eyed immortals and one very exhausted human around the table. Nile raised her eyebrows at Joe in admonishment, but it wasn’t his fault that he’d liked southern Spain so much during the Renaissance.

‘Look,’ said Mary, opening up her tablet and going into the photo gallery. She flicked through a couple of pictures, her cheeks growing red until she settled on one and handed it to Nile. ‘Like two drops of water, right?’

It was Nicky. No doubt about it. Joe had caught him in a moment of quiet joy, the smile that he saved for when he greeted one of them after a long time apart. His hair was longer, but everything else could have been a picture taken before dinner.

‘Wow, that’s uncanny,’ Nile said. She flicked to the next picture, and really wished she hadn’t: Nicky, stark naked on top of crumpled sheets, his bedroom eyes full of promise. She went back to the previous photograph and handed the tablet over to Nicky. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.

‘Isn’t it just?’ Mary shook her head, as if she couldn’t believe it. ‘This lasagne is fantastic, by the way. But yeah, it’s a really small manuscript, just someone’s diary, but he talks about his lover quite a lot. I’m looking at it as part of my research into artists and their muses and the acceptability of same-sex love.’

Nicky smiled and passed on the tablet. ‘He’s more handsome than me.’

‘Lovers have a way of doing that,’ said Joe, who barely gave his old work a glance before handing it to Andy.

Andy, much like Nile, flicked back and forth. ‘Have you read the text?’ she asked Mary.

‘My Arabic is poor, but with a dictionary and a lot of effort, I’m working my way through it,’ said Mary. ‘It’s a lovely account.’

‘ _June fourteenth,_ ’ Andy read, and Mary’s eyes flashed in surprise. ‘ _Summer dawns are always my favourite time of day to draw him, when the sky outside lightens up with the same brightness my beloved holds in his eyes. Before the heat of the day turns my limbs into heavy weights, we walk to the river and bathe. His body, unchanged for so many centuries, yet perfectly adapted to fit into my embrace…_ ’

‘I think that’s quite enough,’ said Joe, taking the tablet from her. He handed it back to Mary, his face brushed with pink. ‘That is such an interesting research topic, Mary. Are you looking at any other examples?’

She shook her head and placed the tablet back in her bag. ‘More of a case study approach, although I am considering deepening the research for a potential PhD.’

‘And the book you’re using,’ said Nicky. ‘Is that in the library?’

‘Well, I’m digitising it,’ she said. ‘As part of a project to modernise the humanities. I actually uploaded all the scans yesterday. It’s how I found it to begin with.’

Andy’s lips lifted in a wolf-like smile. ‘It’s on line, you say?’

‘Yes, on the university library’s website. Nile uses the manuscript bit all the time, I can give her the reference and she can pull it up for you, if you like.’ Mary looked at Nicky again, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Absolutely incredible how similar you look. It’s so funny, isn’t it, when you see pictures of people next to ancient pieces of art that they resemble?’

The Guard nodded, and for a couple of seconds, the only sounds were those of forks scraping against plates, the wine swirling in Nile’s glass. Her face felt hot, and no matter how much she tried, she could not get the image of her naked, beloved friend out of her mind.

‘Well, let us know how you get on,’ said Joe eventually. ‘And, um, if you ever have any questions about Spanish artists, hit me up. I’m always very happy to help.’

When Mary put on her coat again later that evening, her face still shone with excitement. ‘Your friends are so nice. And so knowledgeable. And the way Nicky looks _just_ like that model… it’s incredible. Although a tiny bit awkward. It feels kind of like I’ve seen him naked. Like you meet a one-night-stand again or something. Really strange.’

‘Yup,’ said Nile. ‘You can say that again.’


	4. Il. 10.655ff: Nestor's speech as a reflection upon memory

> _The use of oral poetry for the sake of education both creates and maintains the shared ancestry of a people. The early hexameter poems - famously the_ Iliad _and_ Odyssey _, but all this is equally true for the_ Theogony _or any of the Homeric Hymns - through existing ensured their own importance. Additionally_
> 
> _~~Additionally.~~ _
> 
> _~~Additionally, it could be said -~~ _
> 
> _~~Additionally, later authors such as Aeschylus and Herodotus~~ _
> 
> _~~In addition, the establishment of a heroic almost-past, between humans as we know them and the glorious ‘god-like’ heroes~~ _

Nile wondered how long it would take until the letters on her ‘Backspace’ key faded completely from over-use. She could do this. Oral traditions. Homer. She’d seen _Troy_ (the movie _and_ the tv show), she’d read a ton of books, it was all about the sliding scale of normal humans to deities. There was Nestor’s speech, there was Parry’s research on oral traditions in Serbia, she could take this in so many directions.

She squared her shoulders and placed her hands back on the keyboard.

> _Additionally_

Additionally, she needed a break.

To reassure herself that she was about to return to her labours sooner rather than later, she brought her laptop with her to the living room. Nicky, sprawled on the sofa, looked up from the thriller he was reading. ‘Have you reached eight hundred words yet?’

‘Almost.’

He looked as if he might send her back upstairs, as he and Joe had been ordered to do when she announced her deadline, but instead he placed the book upside-down on the arm of the sofa and rose to his feet. ‘Let’s have some coffee. Joe?’

‘With a biscuit, please.’

‘All right.’

‘But not a chocolate one.’

‘All right.’

‘I like those with ginger.’

‘All right.’

‘And don’t forget the -’

‘Two spoons of sugar.’

‘Thanks. ’Joe smiled from the dinner table, where he sat behind his own computer, the screen flashing yellows and blues from the wildlife documentary.

Nile and Nicky squeezed into the kitchen, where she leaned against the counter as Nicky grounded the coffee beans. The machine was so loud, Nile could barely hear her own thoughts, let alone anything else.

‘So, that essay,’ said Nicky, lifting the lid and smelling the coffee. ‘Pre-written identity, right?’

‘That was the plan. I don’t know, it’s just not coming.’

‘Nothing like coffee to get the creative juices flowing.’

The slight twist of his lips made her wonder how many times he had said the same thing to Joe. Still, watching him calmed her down, his steady hands preparing three cups (all espresso, even if hers was allowed to be macchiato. He had been swift to order her off cappuccini after ten thirty in the morning, saying the heaviness made it unsuitable so shortly before lunch).

Returning to the living room, they found Joe had taken Nicky’s seat on the sofa. Feeling like she was being looked after by two particularly attentive uncles, Nile accepted the middle seat, the mug in her hands still less warm than Joe’s gaze.

‘She’s in need of some inspiration,’ said Nicky.

Nile let out a deep sigh. ‘Writing about how poetry creates identity in archaic societies. Any thoughts?’

‘Why don’t you just ask Andy?’ Joe said. ‘She’s had lots of poetry written about her.’

‘What?’ Nile asked.

‘She must have told you.’ Joe took another biscuit and held it over his cup, the steam slowly warming it. ‘The “I used to be worshipped as a god” thing? Happened throughout history, occasionally made it into verse. I mean, beautiful, immortal warrior woman. It kind of writes itself.’

‘Oh.’ Nile did remember. Between everything that had happened just before that statement - what with her dying for the first two times and being kidnapped and all that - and the Merrick drama that followed, Andy’s temporary godhood had slipped from her mind. And now that she thought about it…

‘She pre-dates everything, doesn’t she?’ she said, shaking her head. ‘The oldest poetry. The pyramids.’

‘The wheel. Don’t forget the wheel,’ said Joe.

Nicky’s eyes danced over Nile’s face. ‘She’s coming back soon. You can ask her then. Not that she’ll be able to give you any evidence that your university might find acceptable, of course.’

‘You say this,’ said Nile, ‘but one of my commentaries on the Georgics did say that Vergil came to him in a dream and explained the meaning of a particular passage in German. Visions and visitations are not unheard of in some parts of academia.’

Joe and Nicky exchanged glances, and Nile began to understand where those visions might have come from.

A few minutes later, the door opened and Andy returned, laden with groceries. Motivated by an eagerness to help as well as this prime opportunity to procrastinate, Nile rushed to take some of the bags and joined Andy in the kitchen to put everything away.

‘So, um, Andy,’ she said, closing the fridge door, ‘can I ask you something?’

‘Sure.’

‘You know Homer?’

Andy narrowed her eyes. ‘The poet or the _Simpsons_ character?’

‘The poet.’

‘He wasn’t a real person. I’ve never met him, before you ask.’

Well, that was one academic debate silenced. ‘Did you know any of the stories, the verse, before people attributed it to him? Like, how was that knowledge presented, where did people think it came from?’

‘Eye-witness accounts,’ said Andy, as if it were obvious.

‘Even the birth of the gods?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And you - did you ever question this?’

‘Well, I knew the Greeks were wrong,’ she said, as she sorted the three different types of cereal. ‘About the dates, at least. Well, wrong, wrong, they got a lot right. Not about the gods, but Homer’s other work was pretty spot on. Like, Agamemnon as the world’s biggest crybaby? Accurate.’

Nile needed a moment to compose herself. This was why she tended not to ask Andy immediately: everything she said came like a historical punch to the face. How had she been around for _so long_? ‘You knew Agamemnon?’

‘Saw him from a distance a few times. Lykon nearly killed him in the second year of the war, which would have saved everyone a whole lot of trouble.’ She shook her head, as if it were an administrative error she were talking about. ‘Are you studying Homer now? That is fun. I haven’t listened to him in years.’

Listened. She didn’t read Homer. She _listened_ to him. She was the person who experienced oral poetry.

How, Nile wondered, was Andy real?

Andy must have seen something in her expression, because she smiled and said, ‘I can sing you some of his lost poems, if you like?’

‘His lost - you know - you can sing -’

From the living room, Joe called, ‘Jeez, Andy. Can’t you let the girl take things in one at a time?’

Andy shrugged. ‘Fine. I won’t, then. Anyway, my Ionian is a bit rusty. I’d probably get the words all wrong now. Oh damn, I got the wrong chocolate.’ Her face fell as she held up a chocolate bar and turned it over in her hands. ‘I hate it when they add orange flavour to it. Why would anyone do that? I’m telling you, Nile. Life was better before they added fruit liqueurs to chocolate.’

_Was it better before the wheel?_ Nile wanted to ask, but she couldn’t. She just took the offered chocolate - she didn’t mind the orange - and returned upstairs, where she opened her laptop and stared at the words on the screen.

> _Additionally, if anyone reading this essay is wondering about the lost parts of the epic cycle, they can come round to mine. The last person on earth who knows them will recite in exchange for baklava or chocolate without any liqueurs._

For a long, wonderful moment, Nile looked at the paragraph that would get her international academic fame as well as a firm red mark from her supervisor. Then, her ring finger sought for the backspace key.

**Author's Note:**

> 'Hey, you know where my degrees in Classics and Medieval Studies would come in handy? Old Guard fic.'  
> Or: this is the story where I shamelessly have the Old Guard reflect on fun historical events. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.


End file.
